


Touching a Nerve

by monimala



Series: Cin City [2]
Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: F/M, I'm Going to Hell, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 16:18:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15844899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: Set while Ben is being held at the Salem PD in July 2018, this is a visit Ciara makes in between the ones shown on air and it follows my storyChoking Hazards.“You think I'm good, Ciara?” He leans forward, practically scoffing at her. “Kind? I'm the man who touched himself thinking of you when you could barely move!”





	Touching a Nerve

It’s surprisingly easy to get back in to see Ben. Number one, she’s of legal age and can therefore visit whoever she wants in lock-up. Number two, she’s known most of the Salem police force since she was a kid, and she’s pretty sure they all sympathized when her mom dragged her out of the interrogation room in the kind of hysterical fit that would go viral if someone recorded it. _Ugh. So embarrassing._ So, they all look the other way when she awkwardly crutches in—yeah, it’s not like she can go into stealth mode with a broken leg. Ben gets brought out of his cell a few minutes later. Only it feels like hours. Hours and not long enough.

What’s shocking is that he isn’t happy to see her. It’s like she imagines the flicker of joy in his eyes. It’s so quickly replaced by a glare. By anger. He slouches in his chair, cuffed hands in front of him on the table. “Why are you here?”

She swallows. Shifts in her seat. Winces as she bangs her cast. “Because you’re still here.” _Duh_.

He looks past her. His jaw is tight enough to cut glass. “You shouldn’t be here.” He bites off the syllables like he’s pulling pins from grenades. “This isn’t the place for you. You need to leave.”

Ciara has lived through a lot of explosions in her life. A lot of people lobbing things at her that they expect her to duck. “No.” She sits up as straight as she can, glaring daggers right back at Ben. “Why does everyone keep telling me what to do?”

He stays slouched. He shakes his head, shakes off her defense. It’s like she didn’t say anything at all. “Maybe they're right. Maybe I haven't changed,” he murmurs, practically to himself. And then he meets her gaze. What she sees there in his expression—something almost calculating, almost sinister—it doesn’t prepare her at all for what comes out of his mouth next.

“You think I'm good, Ciara?” He leans forward, practically scoffing at her. “Kind? I'm the man who touched himself thinking of you when you could barely move!”

He _what_?! For a full ten seconds, she just tries to process it. The words. The order they were spoken in. What they mean. “Y-you touched yourself?”

Ben laughs. “You're right. That's the pretty way to say it. They taught me to be honest in therapy. I _jerked off_ , Ciara. To your face.”

It sounds like a jeer. Like it’s something cruel. He _wants_ it to be cruel. But heat flushes through her body. Heat. Embarrassment. Something else. Something she hasn’t felt in years. She’s glad she’s sitting down, crutches propped to the side, because she can’t feel her knees. There’s no pain in her leg. She’s boneless. Jelly. A mess of nerves and feelings, all concentrated between her thighs.     

Ben flashes a smile she doesn’t recognize. It’s an expression he’s never worn for her: wolfish, predatory. _Mean_. “You’re thinking about it, huh? My hand on my dick. Sweet, trusting, Ciara. You thought you were safe in that cabin with me, but all I wanted to do was eat you alive.”

He’s not talking about cannibalism. That much is obvious. The visual is splashed across her eyelids in Technicolor. _Ben helping her with her jeans. Replacing that washcloth with his tongue. Licking her and licking her and licking her._ Ciara wants to sink into the floor. Maybe she could. Because she’s all liquid now. But this is what he wants: her off-balance, teetering between mortification and fear and that _something else_ she doesn’t want to put a name to.

“You can’t scare me,” she assures when she finds her voice again. If it’s a little hoarse, a little breathless, so be it. She can still get her point across. “I won’t let you push me away.”  

He makes a soft sound of frustration. And, just like that, he’s her Ben again. The man she’s gotten to know. The man from the cabin who speaks gently, like he’s afraid to startle her. “Why the hell not? Jesus, Ciara. Everybody in this town is telling you to run as far as you can from me. Why are you so determined to help me?”

“Because no one else will.” Ciara’s a Brady. A Horton. She’s been taught to fight for the underdog—and to fight dirty if necessary. Her mom may hate the way the lessons are playing out, but Ciara won’t regret learning them. “Because everyone deserves a second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance. I’m not stupid, Ben. I’m _not_ naïve,” she assures.

Ben sits back, rattling his handcuffs with the movement. “Then what are you?” he asks, tilting his head. Like he’s trying to figure her out.

There’s no puzzle to solve. She has the answer ready. “I’m a survivor. Not a victim. Not _your_ victim,” she tells him, slapping one hand down on the interrogation table for emphasis. “If everybody in this town wants you to settle up for being a serial killer, that’s up to them. But I will not let you pay for something you _didn’t_ do to me.”

She doesn’t stay in the room much longer after making that grand pronouncement. Too much is buzzing in her brain. How to help Ben. Where to get the money to bail him out. Finding him a lawyer. One of the uniforms drives her home so she doesn’t have to call a Lyft, and she spends the fifteen-minute ride pressing her knees together and trying not to think about all the things Ben said.

_“All I wanted to do was eat you alive.”_

_“I'm the man who touched himself thinking of you when you could barely move!”_

_“I jerked off, Ciara. To your face.”_

She nearly drops the keys and her crutches trying to get into the apartment. She counts every blessing and thanks a few saints when it turns out that neither Tripp nor Claire are home. The last thing she wants to do is explain why she’s still flushed, why she can’t quite take a full breath. Why she’s completely out of her head. Why she’s shoving down her track pants as she stumbles toward the couch.

_It’s only fair_ , she thinks as she slips her fingers below the waistband of her panties. As she remembers his eyes going dark with anger and what she now knows is barely checked lust. If Ben Weston got himself off while thinking about her, while imagining her face…it’s only fair that she returns the favor.

 

  

\--end--


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